BREAKING BARRICADES Art In Transit
-Shail Suneja
Introduction The Art In Transit project is about making art interventions in and around Peenya Metro station situated in Bangalore, India. It’s for the public using the metro station to interact with. The idea is to get Peenya into the metro station, which means that every art piece that we make in this project will be inspired by an aspect of Peenya to make the viewers acknowledge something about Peenya. Public art is about making an intervention in a space physically and/or intellectually well in reach of the public to interact with. It’s about placing a can on the foot path to see people interact with it in their own way, whether it is by kicking it, throwing it in the trash, crushing it or even picking it up and taking it home, as opposed to making a painting and placing it on a nice wall in a gallery where limited people have access and have a limited interaction with it.
why this project? I’m a Multi-disciplinary Designer doing my graduation programme from Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. During my time in this institute I have intensively learnt product design, space design and natural building. The most important part of my education here is learning how to explore. And so I have always been interested in working with something that I haven’t work with before. So, here I am developing a public art practice. Another reason for taking this project was to incorporate the knowledge, I have gained so far, in this new project and use my strengths to make something different.
background
Clay Sculpture A sculpture of a half face . I call it “The Fallen�. This piece was named after my experience of making it rather than the original idea. While working with this I learned how to react to organically occuring happenings and misshaps during the process of making.
Miniatrure Sculpture Miniature sculptures made to convey expressions of an ecvironmet of death. While working with this I understood the visual aspect of a form that has more than two dimentions. If we look at the sculpture from a different angle the story would stay incomplete.
Product Designing This is an iPhone protection case inspired by the way a snake sheds its skin. This project taught me how to take inspiration from an oganic process to design something inorganic.
Spacial Experience Design This is a layout of a restaurant designed on the basis of a customers experience in the space. While working on this I understood the relation of a person with a space. Natural Buildings An Art installation made in an architecture college This art installation is an expression to promote an alternative material/mean of building. While working with this I learned how to work with different materials and tools required for the same.
Metaphors Making metaphors helped us put down what we saw in words and then look at it from a different perspective and understand It better.
MG Rd Metaphor- “Rings of Light In A Dark Tunnel” There was a water slide that I remembered from my childhood. It was a black tunnel slide and it was very dark inside. You would just wonder where you’re going in the first half of the distance you travel, looking forward to the end. Once you reach the center there are 5-10 rings of light that you pass through which is a beautiful surprise. Once you pass through these rings, even though the second half of the ride is the same as the first half, this time you look forward to the end, but also keep thinking about those rings. Similarily, whenever a person is travelling in the metro s/he doesn’t observe the metro station so much. All s/he can think about is the exit and the directions leading her/him to it. In that tunnel of thought we need to create an intervention so that the traveller comes out with a fresh mind.
artefact
Introducing Suspension Another major feedback that helped guide my process in the correct direction was that of my facilitator Arzu Mistry, . When I showed her the options I developed, keeping modular forms in mind, she reminded me of where its going to be placed (in a public space). And the fact that its accessiblity to the general public is something that I have to take into account. I realized that if I make structures like these in a space where it will be accessible to the general public at all hours, it could easily be misused and have its
own consequences likeBreaking, Dropping on a person, Causing hazard on the roads, Not last long enough, etc. It was time to make a decision. I had to choose between two optionsTo make the form strong enough to handle any kind of hazardous physical interactions, Or, to make it physically inaccessible for the viewers.
Since I wanted to make a subtle, visual intervention for an audience which will always be in motion, I decided to make it physically inaccessible to people and concentrated more on the visual aspect of a Suspended structure.
mapping
Mapping is the act of creating a map, which is a visual representation of a mass of land. This includes finding an element in the space which repeats and modifies itself in it. This helped me find a relationship between the element and the space which enabled me to define different portions of the space. The element could be a smell, sound, light, visual or even a texture. Using the evidence of a few visually occurring objects my class mate Pragya Joshi and I mapped a small section of Yelahanka. For this exercise we chose to map Kanchenahalli, a small village in Yelahanka, by looking at different building structures and anthills.
Peenya Metaphor Our metaphor for Peenya was based on the human experience in Peenya.
There are three stages to the electric circuit. Stage 1- The circuit works properly and the power from the source reaches it’s purpose Stage 2- The fuse of the circuit burns out due to over load Stage 3- The circuit works better than stage 1. The over load has been taken care of with an addition of diodes. Insight We saw Bangalore city full of madness where the transport system is like a circuit. Where the Power source is the influx of people, Switch is the Entry point for the people to reach their destination. The system includes flyovers, highways and signals (depicted by Transistor, Capacitor and Voltage Regulators respectively). This provides it with a smoother flow of current. The system runs so that it can provide people with connectivity throughout the city. This has been depicted with a Fuse. But if there is an over flow of current the smooth flow turns into chaos and the city loses its connectivity(stage 2 shows a disconnected circuit because the fuse burns out). This is where Namma-metro is added to the city and the diodes are added to the circuit, to control the flow of current so that there is connectivity. This experience told us about how important the Namma Metro is for Bangalore.
Mapping Peenya After learning how to map places in Yelahanka, I mapped the flow of people with various jobs in Peenya. The best way to do so was to find different characters and quite literally,follow their foot steps. How did I come to the reference of people and not a stationary object like buildings? I revisited our first objective which was to make interventions for people using the Peenya metro station and decided to focus on people. But then off course the first question that comes to mind is, who are these people and what do people want?
Map of Peenya- This map shows the locations of different occupations of people in Peenya
SHOPKEEPERS UNIFORM JOBS OUTDOOR MALE LABOUR FEMALE LABOUR FEMALE HOMEMAKERS DESK JOBS INDOOR MALE LABOUR
Story Of Peenya Peenya is a place situated on the outskirts of Bangalore. It has been developed to become Asia’s largest industrial area. From chemicals to machineries, these factories give employment to a lot of people and Peenya has become a part of their daily life. People from not just Bangalore but all over India visit Peenya everyday. This place plays a huge role in hundreds of people’s lives and has to be well connected to the Bangalore city. A huge aspect through which its connected to Bangalore city (the IT city of India) is the National Highway 4 and now also Namma Metro.
Journey Through Peenya In order to develop my illustration for the wall I needed some inspiration. For this I took help of a tool called journey mapping. This made me go back to Peenya and look for imagery that is unique to the place. But when I came back and reviewed what I saw there, I found out that there was always a combination of two contrasting things . Sometimes materialsometimes form, sometimes purpose-some other times just the color. Kids were playing with sharp tools , there were temples or puja places in factories, there was a scooter turned into a clothes shop, there was a very modern looking Metro Depot right next to an abandoned construction yard where you could find old trucks covered with creepers. There was a nice hand sketched poster reminding the workers of their home ,so that they try to be safe, put up very near to the industrial waster. There was a nice community where people earned their living by working with their own hands and next to which was a giant Industrial area which made machinery.
A journey map of Peenya.
History of peenya The bottom part which shows a lot more freedom, simpler lifestyle, more natural forms and more fresh air which gives it a more earthen feel. The next portion shows the late 1970’s and 1980’s when the highway with two roads was made and the commotion started happening. People started getting unemployed, homes started getting destroyed, and the trees got cut down to make the highway. This was when the industry started to come in Peenya. The next portion shows the recent history. It shows the late 1990’s when the industry was fully functional and there was development in Peenya with gated communities, housing complexes, factories, development centers and a
whole lot of other emerging business sectors. This was when Peenya had started togaining fame asthe largest industrial in Asia. And so the highway grew into having four roads and flyovers. And now , since Peenya is recognised as the largest industrial area of Asia, it seems to be operating mechanically. It displays a very robotic behavior, where a group of people can be seen walking together, going to the same place for the same purpose. The highway is as busy as it can get with miraculous sights. You can see everything that you can expect to see on a variety of roads on this highway passing through Peenya. It includes a huge variety of vehicles, machineries, businesses and people. It looks as busy as a fully functional circuit board.
2014
1990’s
1980’s
1970’s
making it expressive. The colors are imaginary and are assigned according to theway I want the mural to feel. The bottom part of the image shows a lot of more freedom, simpler lifestyle. There are more natural forms and more fresh air and has more earthen colors.
The late 1970-80’s is shown with a bit of warm colors that compliments the earthen hues. There is all the excitement but still has some simplicity to it. The neutral colors also depict that its all history now and its buried under the current grounds of Peenya.
The recent history (the late 1990’s) has been depicted with more of a grey scale as well as earthen colors because this development happened back in the 90’s. It’s shown as if it has just been buried underground.
The current status of Peenya includes a variety of vehicles, machineries, businesses and people. It looks as busy as a fully functional circuit board. finish.
Putting the story on the I painted an outline of my form at the metro station parking wall with a glimpse of the materials and colors that I would use in the finished form. This was done for a self organised exhibition in the metro station titled KSHANA. This was done to see the public reaction and get live feedback. What I observedWhen the local public saw my piece, at first their eyes caught the tree made of mud, and then they discovered the rest of the story, fortunately with the flow I expected them to follow. What my conclusion wasThe fact that people stopped to see my art wok and acknowledged only the tree because it was visually different from the rest of the wall. They stuck around just because because they saw something unusual which they dont see every day.
wall.
what i am doing. After learning about commuters in Peenya and commuters using metros as their daily mean to travel, I concluded with this thought- ‘The world will be a place where the destination station is not yet the destination, it's a milestone in a life. And there will never be anytime to look up’ . We need to interupt this darkness. All I want to do through this intervention is refresh the viewer‘s mind and give him/her a new perspective to continue with his/her daily routine.
Considering that I have been working with different materials, tools, sculptures and other 3 dimensional forms, I wanted to make this intervention possible with a 3 Dimentional art installation in space.
Site Once I had an idea of what I want to do I went looking for my site. I found the triangular space underneath the metro station.
There is a disconnect between this space and the metro station, even though it’s a part of it.
It’s surrounded with three very busy roads. A constant traffic of trucks, tempos, buses, MUVs, motorcycles and other vehicles makes the triangular space inaccessible for the pedestrians. The inaccessibility is such that people don’t even throw garbage there.
This interests me because it reminds me of the relationship that the different communities of Peenya share. Which again is one of a deep disconnect.
This site is that it can be seen from all the entry points to the metro station and yet its ignored. Once I made my choice, I let the site sink in with it’s difficulties and problems. I learnt that there is a lot of continuos movement in
this space. Be it vehicles, light, sounds, or just light and shade. So I knew that my installation cannot be “Stationary” because my choice of audience around this space is always going to be in motion. I chose the trafic as my audience.
Audience My project is site specific. The three busy roads have been the biggest intermidiate and the reason for the two disconnected ends (the site and the people using the Metro Station). I wanted this problem to turn into the link that connects the two ends. And the people travelling in their vehicles become the “Public” in this “Public Space”, and the traffic becomes my audience. I found it to be an interesting challenge that the viewers for this piece will always be in motion. Since my project is very process oriented I understood that this will inspire me to mould my form.
In order for the form to be inspired from the audience as well, I made some notes based on what I observed looking at the traffic. It reminded me ofConstant motion, Continuous change, and The Highway. The Highway because it was the highway created this disconnect between the two communities of Peenya, like the three busy roads being the reason of disconnect between the Triangular Space and the Metro Station.
Understanding site through play. I attempted to understand my site by making it interact with various elements around it. I chose the forms and played with the visual element of each in order to learn what and how my form could relate better and realize the site as well as its structure . Through these experiments I understood three aspects- Scale - Repetition - Continuity
Realizing hard material soft form During this process I learnt how to use a hard material to form a shape which resembles a more flexible, fluid and a light form (a soft form). Having a soft form complicatae itself through a hard material placed in the middle of a rigid structure creates two kinds of surprises for the viewer.
1. It cuts through the rigidity of the structure and activates a counter behaviour of relevant materials. 2. It catches the viewers attention because they see an unusual use of the material that they are familiar with. It creates an element of surprise for the viewer.
defining the space I knew my audience and also had a concept for my form. I went to the site again to define it according to my observation of what such an audience will see and how.
I wanted my form to organically develop through the needs of the intervention which in this case is having a soft form, being subtle, and not being static.
studying flow My audience is the going to be in motion all the time, and so my form cannot be static. When I say this I mean that the form cannot be visually stationary. It needs to keep on changing with respect to the movement of the traffic. This can be pursued by making something that literally moves or make something that has a form which keeps chang-
ing if you look at it from a car window. In order to do so I had to study the flow of the traffic, for which I sat on a motorcycle and took a ride across these roads , taking videos of what the commuter would see, and related videos of the traffic from the site. This flow was going to define the flow of my form.
Now how do I study flow? All I could imagine everytime I looked at those videos or looked at the traffic was wind lines. Trucks cutting through the wind and running in a line at all times, And lines of light continuously passing by, like a long exposure shot at night. I needed to visualise imaginary lines coming out constantly moving vehicles, I
thought the best place to start looking was The Wind Tunnel Test of cars. The wind tunnel test is where they test the aerodynamics of anything starting from an Aircraft, to Cars, Motorcycles, Cyclists, helmets and even tennis balls. They do this on anything that moves in order to see if it needs to hinder, direct, or break the flow of wind according to its needs.
The Kandivali Experience In the middle of all the hustle in the process work, we got an opportunity to go to Kandivali, Mumbai, and be part of a smaller project where we could research, design and execute artworks in 10 days. We were told that this is going to be a chance for us to continue thinking about our ideas for the Peenya project and portray it in a different form, in a different space. My inspiration was motion. I wanted to
show movements in a still space. I was looking for walls where I could make linear forms that interacts with the people passing by. This wall is a part of a school and I found it interesting because there are kids playing around here all the time and there are other pedestrians who come only for walks in this area. It’s a colorful wall, behind a school. It looked like a colorful jungle gym to me.
I always found the ideaof stick figures in motion very interesting. It’s one of the best tools to express the movement . There are a lot of short action stories on the wall that ensure a longer engagement with the piece.
what i learned here. My journey in Kandevali began with tak- ing a walk through the place to let the can- vas sink in and inspire me. This time I had a specified goal, which was to execute the idea of flow using a visual blend of the hard material and soft form and communicate with the audience which is the traffic around the space. We were not supposed to give a glimpse of what we were doing in Peenya, but to find a
way to use the same idea in a different form. My first idea was inspired by the Red colored BEST buses found all over Mumbai. The movement of the bus reminded me of a rollercoaster ride and the way the forces of inertia make you feel dizzy and scared. These busses have a similar flow. So, my art was about making a Bus as a Hard material, portraying it in a soft form and showing its flow when its cutting through the traffic on the roads.
The piece was left incompete. For the reasons of my own safty from the traffic my permission for this particular wall was taken away. The design I was working on since 3 days, the idea which people would connect much more with, which I finally started executing, didn’t really matter any more. I took a step back and thought about why I was in Mumbai? I have a goal, which was not just to make this piece. It was to have a first hand experience of Public Art Practice and make interventions in public spaces. So, it was decided that if not this intervention there will be some other intervention that I make here. Thats when I chose to start working on my
second piece which ended up being a little more than just complete. It was the last day of work and I was giving finishing touches. But there was something missing. Perhaps the art blended with the wall a little too much. I realized I need another brush. Once I came back suddenly the finishing wasn’t the problem anymore. Somebody spilled my paint on the wall leaving a message., which none of us understood. There was no time and i had to get over the fact that he/she spoiled my work and realized that I cant leave this piece unfinished. And that worked out very well for me because working on fixing the mishap solver my earlier problem as well.
Developement of the form and options The short term experience at Kandivali taught us a lot about being a Public Art Practicioner. Coming back to the Peenya project I noticed myself looking at my own project with a different perspective. So I went back to the site to find more relevant options for the form and keeping three specifications in mindSoft Form Movement of traffic or The flow of the traffic Creating an invitation to the site through a sense of shelter.
OBSERVATIONSThis exercise helped me realize that I was thinking of three kinds of formsCenter- The ones wich have more mass in the center of the space. Border- The ones which were orienrted mostly on the border of the space. This was the first option to be ruled out because the idea was to remove the boundaries and create an invitation for people. Spread- The ones which would be spread through out the space to make the impact. Then I thought why not make a fourth option, Center-spread- This one would have a center base but also would spread.
center
spread
Border
Center and Spread
Re-visit to the site After every step of development in the form I wanted to take inspiration from the site and spend some time to understand what my next step could be. This time I started my day at site with taking a lift from a biker from a far point down the road. I wanted to see if I’m missing any entery point or where the entry point starts for the traffic coming from the far end. This made me realize that this site is the only thing that you can see from the end of the road like a small window.
I could see a lot of greens on the sides and in the center of the frame I could see a window, all the vehicles go into and come out of it. You get to know the truth once you reach the window. You see the flow of the traffic going around the space (which is a more likely thing to happen for the site), without even acknowledging the space (which is not the best thing to happen to this site). This inspired me to make the connection between Peenya and the Metro station, which can be done only through this invitation to activate the space.
Selecting one form Based on this, I sketched out the area with red and green depicting high points and low points respectively. The low points are the ones which would let the form fade in and fade out of the viewers sight. The high points are the ones where the form acts as an intervention to the viewer. I chose a form from the previous options to satisfy all the needs together, and then further define it.
This is an abstract soft form which looks like a huge cloth placed in the middle of an edgy and rigid structure, creating a sense of surprise for the viewer. It has entry points and exit points and a flow to it so that it doesn’t interrupt the traffic but creates a meaningful pause in their lives. It also has a sense of shelter which gives an invitation to people to acknowledge the space
scale down bamboo prototype After arriving at a basic form i started thinking about the appropriate material for this form. I chose bamboo because it’s in contrast to the identity of the currently used synthetic materials for construction. So, in order to make a mock up and check
the tensility of the material I chose to make a 1/40 scaled model of the structure I had in mind.
I took some assurance for using this material from the internet and by talking to some fabricators and designers, about the tensility of the material, even though I had personally experienced working with it.
While making this piece I learnt the different techniques of working with this material and the way it reacts to different process’ such as bending, weaving, cutting and tying etc.
On site visualization This is an on site visualization of the scaledown model. It was necessary to do this to imagine the basic form better in order to understand whether it does the job or not.
Making a modular form (change in form) This form has been developed very organically. After making a basic structure my facilitator Samir Parker made me realize that the form is huge and cant be a single piece. After analyzing the form again we realized that it would sag from certain places. So, I decided to make it modular.
At the same time another feedback from my facilitator Amitabh Kumar reminded me of how these modules, if placed properly, could capture that same flow and be more interactive. All that they needed was continuity. So I started thinking in those terms to evolve my form.
Refining the ideas through site This was the time when I was stuck and the form process took a hault and the form wasn’t taking shape. So, my facilitator adviced me to go back to site once again, because that is where I always found sollutions. For this visit he inspired me to look at the site more seriously. That is when we understood that one thing I was not thinking about was evolving the form
anchir points options
through the site. I wasmaking forms and trying to fit them in the site. So now the plan was to take it slow and in two steps. Step 1- To findanchor points for installation.
New options finding options considering all four feedbacks- modular form, carrying continuity, inaccessibility, function and strength.
Finalizing the form and the reasons I finalized this form because it does justice toHard material soft form A flow with respect to the traffic Resemblance with an existing form but is rescaled to be larger.
Looking at the form I thought this remind-
ed me of “Broken Barricades flying away with the wind�, as if the boundaries were finally broken. So, that became a metaphor I wanted to represent my idea with and for that i had to use a relevant material which is a metal mesh just like the ones you see on the fences of these different communities.
3D Model
Material research This point of my project was about fool proofing my design. So, I met Sudipto Dasgupta, Product Design Faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, to reassure if my form is going to work or not, and also to help me debug it. One of the great advises he gave me that inspired me was to Not let the material decide my form. Not letting the material decide the form. And also that I should make a proper scale down model/ a prototype of the site as well as my form. And knowing a little moreabout what I want to do i went for my market research to K.R. Market, Bangalore.
Market Research Gi foldable mesh : Cost Light- ₹ 10/ sqft Medium- ₹ 11/sqft Heavy- ₹ 15/sqft PVC Coated- ₹ 13/sqft Full roll length- 250 sqft Full roll weight: Light- 30 Kg Medium- 40-42 Kg Heavy- 56-60 Kg Total Approximate weight: Light- 270 Kg Medium- 360 Kg Heavy- 540 Kg Total approximate cost: Light- ₹ 22,500 Medium- ₹ 24,750 Heavy- ₹ 33,750
scale model of site and form This is a scaled down model of the site as well as the form. This exercise helped me understand how a similar material would react to certain kind of bends.
consulting the structural engineer With all the finalized information we met Mr. Basha, Structural Engineer, BMRCL. I showed him what the form looks like, where its going to be placed and what material I wanted to use. My worry was if the beam can hold the weight or not, and i was very confident about the material for this form. He told that the beam could hold enough weight and I really didn’t need to worry. But he also told me that the form would collapse if I make it with
the material I was thinking about. On the bases of Mr. Basha’s feedback I started designing the structure for the form, which intern was also modifying the form. He wanted me to have a thick center pipe running through every piece and some side members to help it not collapse.
Mr. Basha’s explaination imidiately made an image of a leaf in my head. So I drew a leaf trying to understand how it could help my form look more organic with the support structure.
Problems with fabrication and solutions This form being a soft form has no particular dimentions or measurements. Any measurement taken was to define the area of play. And well everything comes with a certain kind of consequences of its own. here the problem was that no fabricator was ready to make this form because of three main reasons, One being that its an unusual form so it was really hard to explain them what it actually is. And i didn’t have proper AutoCAD drawings of it because it’s been developing with every step in my process. Second reason was that they have’nt worked with something so experimental on this scale, and they wanted me to make
a full size mockup of each pipe separately. This wasn’t a possibility for me since I had such less time to finish it. The third problem was actually one of the reasons why they wouldn’t understand this form. This form has a lot of 3 Dimentional curves. With the kind of support structures I was looking at, the cost of the installation shot up and I realized that it’s not in the budge anymore. The only thing that we could do then was simplify the support system.
revisiting the material To have a different support structure I needed a better mesh too. Something that doesnt need so many guiding members in the support system. So, I found some options like GI folded mesh, Perphorated MSsheets, MSsquare mesh and Expanded MS. Out of these I chose Expanded MS. This mesh has a lot of more strength and is available in different sizez and thicknesses. This mesh would takethe form properly because it was bending properly too.
Experimenting with the mesh After finalizing on the mesh, I eventually ended up buying the mesh got it transported to the site. My plan was to do experiments with it. I wanted to find out about the tensility and the possibilities of working with this mesh. These experiments were very impusive ones keeping my form in mind.
defining the form While doing those experiments I observed that the mesh was moulding itself into the form and defining the curves. So, I hired a couple of weldersandstarted making the form on the ground. This process later helped me measure certain important curves and bends in the form.
options for support system
Thank You.